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Excerpts from Asthma Inhalants Don't Help Smokers

By Brigitte Greenberg, Associated Press [06/23/99]Writer

The inhaled steroids that enable asthma patients to breathe easier won't do much to help people with lung disease from years of smoking.

Doctors had hypothesized that inhaled steroids might help such people because, like asthma patients, they suffer shortness of breath.

However, two studies in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine found steroids to be of little help.

Smoking causes about 85 percent of all cases of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, which is a combination of chronic bronchitis and emphysema. Nearly 16 million Americans suffer from the disease, according to the American Lung Association.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that more than 106,000 people died of the illness in 1996, making it the fourth leading cause of death in the United States.

In both groups that received treatment, the steroids were associated with shorter hospital stays and easier breathing at the beginning, but the benefits were no longer evident after six months, and the eight-week treatment was found to be no more effective than two weeks of treatment.

What's more, compared with patients who got the placebo, those who were treated with steroids were more likely to require treatment for hyperglycemia, an abnormally high level of sugar in the blood.

In the other study, from Dr. Romain A. Pauwels of University Hospital in Ghent, Belgium, and colleagues, an inhaled steroid was tested on patients who refused to stop smoking and suffered from a milder form of lung disease. The medicine was found to produce a one-time improvement in lung function, but it had no appreciable effect over the long term.

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